Austrian Pilgrim Hospice to the Holy Family
The Austrian Pilgrim Hospice to the Holy Family (German: Österreichisches Pilger-Hospiz zur Heiligen Familie in Jerusalem, Hebrew: ההוספיס האוסטרי של המשפחה הקדושה, Arabic: التكية النمساوية للعائلة المقدسة) is a pilgrims hostel of the Austrian Catholic Church in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The interest of the major European powers in the Levant increased in the middle of the 19th century, after an alliance of Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia had halted the advance of the Egyptians under Muhammad Ali Pasha and brought the Ottoman province Şam back under the control of the Sublime Porte in Istanbul.
In 1852, the Austrian vice-consul Josef Graf Pizzamano proposed the construction of a pilgrims' hospital with an associated church in order to consolidate Austria's influence as a protective power for Christians in the Middle East.
[1] At the beginning of 1854, the 3956 m2 building site on the corner of Via Dolorosa and El Wad Street in the Old City of Jerusalem was acquired by Consul Pizzamano for 5,700 gulden of Austrian currency.
The chapel of the hospice was solemnly consecrated by the Latin Patriarch Giuseppe Valerga and the pilgrims' guesthouse was opened on 19 March 1863.
In 1895, the curator of the House of Prelate Hermann Zschokke advocated a structural restructuring and modernisation, as the character of pilgrimages had changed fundamentally towards the end of the 19th century.
This extension included the two side altars of the Teutonic Order of Knights, a mosaic of the most prominent saints of the Crown Lands in the dome of the apse, new confessionals and pews and a new sacristy.
In the course of the mobilisation phase, on 9 September 1914, the capitulations for the members of the Entente were dissolved and the ecclesiastical institutions of the now enemy nations were requisitioned.
General Ulrich Back became city commander and the Austrian Hospice enjoyed increasing popularity as a meeting place for German and Austro-Hungarian military personnel.
Since Jerusalem had already become an immediate combat zone in November 1917, the Austro-Hungarian consular and military officials evacuated the city, only Rector Fellinger and the sisters remained in the hospice to protect it from looting.
The Austrian Hospice was requisitioned by the British administration on 16 February 1918 and converted into an Anglican orphanage for Syrian Christian children.
After a sighting and subsequent compensation by the British administration, the cleaning, disinfection and repair work on the hospice began at the end of October.
The board of trustees approved the plans for an urgently needed addition in January 1931, hiring Vienna-born Gottlieb Bäuerle as master builder.
The Third Reich immediately cast an eye on the hospice and its special position in the Middle East, they first tried to exert pressure on the rector by freezing the salary payments.
Withstanding the pressure from Berlin, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer stated that the Austrian Hospice was a purely ecclesiastical institution and could only be transferred by decision of the Board of Trustees, in which all dioceses of the former Habsburg Empire were represented, which was not possible for political reasons alone.
Immediately after the declaration of war by Great Britain in 1939, the hospice was confiscated by the British mandate power and Rector Franz Haider was interned for five days.
Auxiliary Bishop Fellinger obtained permission for the five sisters of Vöcklabruck to stay in the pilgrims' house and to manage the household.
The 80 internees, including 23 lay people, were transferred to a Franciscan monastery on 28 June to make room for 170 English women and children from Egypt.
In order to ascertain the possible damage, Franz Haider was brought to Jerusalem from the internment camp in Haifa, where he had been transferred in the meantime.
In May 1944, the British Army decided to establish an officer's school in the house, whose teaching staff included Abba Eban, later Israel's Foreign Minister.
[6] During the 1947–1949 Palestine war, the Austrian Hospice was used as a field hospital; on 10 June 1948, a grenade hit the balcony and killed a nurse and four patients.
The already very sickly rector Franz Haider returned to Vienna on 15 March 1954, the Vöcklabruck sisters remained true to their task and maintained Austrian influence.
In 1961, the Palestinian-Christian trustee of the house, Antoine F. Albina, extended the contract with the Jordanian government on behalf of Rector Franz Haider.
In 1966, when the government in Amman was willing to hold talks on the dissolution of the hospital in the Austrian Hospice, Franz Sauer was appointed new Rector by the Board of Trustees.
[7] It was hoped for a restitution at the beginning of 1970, but the treatment of the pilgrim house, since it is located in the part of the city that is disputed under international law, was a precedent for both sides.
Historically significant for the completion of the hospice was the construction of Casa Austria: In April 2019, this new wing in the north-eastern area of the property on the Via Dolorosa was opened, with which the pilgrims' hostel now attains the size that was already intended in 1863.
[11] The Viennese coffee house has been successively expanded and since 2019 it has borne the name "Café Trieste": in memory of the starting point of the first pilgrimages from the seaport of the former imperial and royal family.
As a cultural and educational institution, the "Academy Austrian Hospice" serves the intercultural encounter between Christianity, Judaism and Islam in the form of lectures, exhibitions, publications and concerts.
Special attention is paid to the Catholic parish "Zur Heiligen Familie" in Gaza City, which was founded as a mission station by the South Tyrolean priest Vice-Rector Georg Gatt in 1887.
